I stopped distro hopping pretty much after trying arch. I still love arch, but my new love is chimera Linux.
For servers I used to run Debian stable, but these days I’m pretty set on alpine.
I’m running OpenSUSE Tumbleweed.
99% happy, once in a blue moon there is a library issue during an update, I have to wait a few days, that’s it.
Very solid KDE experience, all of the things I wanted to do worked out of the box. Very solid.
Fedora fees like a nice and tightly integrated distro. I’m no apple fan but I can appreciate consistent UX, I feel like Fedora for now is the closest to that level of experience, whilst pioneering in desktop-centric technologies.
I have this looming fear that IBM will somehow fuck everything over someday, but as far as I understand, the Fedora project still operates with the same level of autonomy as they did pre-aquisition.
my arch systems have been great for years now. had one breakage that was not my own fault though.
i also have some older thinkpads with endeavor and they’re working great as well.
i would distrohop but i’m too accostomed to the arch repos and aur at this point.
don’t worry, when you get tired of distro-hopping, Debian will still be there for you
Fedora. Super stable, super smooth. Used the thinkpad + fedora combo for over 10 years and will use it for 10 more.
+1 fedora. Tried almost all popular distros but came to back to fedora every single time
My distro hoping days are about done. I started with ubuntu -> KDE Neon -> Arch -> Manjaro -> Solus -> Manjaro -> Pop_OS -> Fedora.
I’m sticking with fedora because I love the ideology behind the project and the pace of updates works perfect for me. Not too fast but still very up-to-date. Also I used to hate gnome but after using fedora I love it, I realized I didn’t hate gnome but hated all the clunk other distro would add to it. I am interested in NixOS but for now I’m gonna continue to stick with fedora, might hop to fedora silverblue tho.
I’m enjoying Linux Mint so far
I’m thinking I may hope around to a distro using a newer kernel but meh
Mint is pretty nice
Edit: My “meh” is because Mint has been super stable for me and I’m not really sure that the effort to switch distros is worth it given that my systems are already rock solid.
I’m pretty sure Mint even has a graphical tool to install a newer kernel.
EndeavourOS. Arch, but easy to install. I’m thrilled with it, although I suspect I’d be even happier if I’d have tried one of the convenience installers for the base. Endeavor is has prettier defaults, so less fussing with basic stuff.
Otherwise, I’m thrilled. I have Artix on my laptop, and while I like not having systemd on it, some things are a bit more kludgey, and I spend more time on maintenance and working to fill gaps. Like, there are not dinit entries for every service, and I have to write them myself; which is absurdly easy, but still. Maybe in a couple years Artix will be less of a chore; in the meantime I’m preferring EndesvorOS.
I do not like the frequency of reboots necessitated by kernel upgrades. I know that I could mask it, but IME that eventually causes problems with packages than make .ko kernel modules; it’s just more things to fail, and it makes me really wish Linus would have just based Linux on MINIX.
Anyway, I have 4 computers I deal with which are Debian based, and I never love Arch more than when I have to do something on Debian. Two are Mint, which are infected with flatpack, and I really hate those.
I do not like the frequency of reboots necessitated by kernel upgrades. I know that I could mask it, but IME that eventually causes problems with packages than make .ko kernel modules; it’s just more things to fail, and it makes me really wish Linus would have just based Linux on MINIX.
Here’s a tip that you might not be aware of: Arch has an LTS kernel. It may seem counter intuitive to run Arch and not have the latest, bleeding edge kernel, but the upside is that you get a stabler, less breakage-prone system.
I didn’t know about the LTS kernel. How does that interact with module packages, like the fscking Broadcom support packages, or bcachesfs (before it for mainlined)? That’s where I’ve historically run into issues with pinning the kernel.
I will absolutely look into this, though. If it prevents the “you need to reboot or else” messages after every Syu, I’m in. On Arch, when you get a message like that, it’s best heeded.
Another pro tip: You don’t need to update Arch every day.
I update about once a month. Just make sure you read the news and deal with your .pacnew files.I’ve gone months between updates. On servers, that’s a little more risky because it CVEs, which can also apply to the kernel, but LTS is probably safe enough there: if there’s a kernel CVE, LTS will be updated.
I’ve had trouble with pinning the kernel before, though. Last time I did it, I went several months and forgotten I’d done it, and my system got itself wedged because some package was expecting a newer kernel; it took me a while to figure out.
LTS might be a better option, since that will be caught be dependency management. Pinning can cause version dependency mismatch issues.
I’ve never had to deal with Broadcom drivers or pinned the kernel, so I can’t tell you anything about that. The LTS kernel (currently 6.6.32-1) still updates regularly, albeit not nearly as often as the stock Arch kernel, so that means fewer updates that require a reboot.
Just install
linux-ltsandlinux-lts-headersvia pacman, and you’re good to go.
